Caught In The Middle
by ForeverMyFather
Summary: This is what my life has been the past semester or so. I'm tired of watching people say they want to help each other, but watching them self-destruct in the process.


**Caught In The Middle**

Intro

You know those pictures on facebook? The ones where you tag your friends in with things like "the one with pretty eyes" or "the funny one?" If that were my friend group, and we were being honest, there'd be tags like "the anorexic one," "the one who cuts," and "the one who gets too attached." I bet you're wondering how I figure into all this. Well, I've been bestfriends with two of the aforementioned friends since third grade. The rest were thrown into the mix when we got to high school and we've been good friends ever since.

You're probably also wondering how we got this far, right? Well, I guess I should start from the beginning. It all started at the beginning of the second semester. The first semester passed without any of this happening. The second? Well. Here we go. I suppose a good starting point would be "The Break Up." Anne and Grey had been _talking _for quite a while. Since halfway through first semester, they were practically dating except for the whole her religion was strict thing. They really liked each other, as in Grey claimed he was in love-head-over-heels-in-love with the girl. Not that I spoke this aloud to him-he seemed so happy, I didn't want to burst his bubble-but I don't really think his attachment was as great as he had himself convinced. Then again, you never know with him, or even most of my friends. A lot of the time they were far too over-emotional anyway. But back to the story. They were talking, and...well, in a nutshell, I was talking to her one day and trying to talk some sense into her (yes, they like each other but EVERYONE knew it couldn't go anywhere) and telling her that she should break it off, especially since she was leaving for England soon. Finally, she agreed. So the next day, she told him she couldn't do it. Of course, Grey flipped and got extremely depressed for a while; he was thoroughly convinced she was 'the one', how could he not? Despite all our efforts to cheer him up, it was to no avail. So she left for England, and he moped around, lashing out at everyone for everything he felt he'd lost. And after a month or two, he slowly at least tried to move on.

Part 1

Macen was a big part of what got Grey through all this, and why he was even able to function at all during that month or so when he was depressed. Macen has been Grey's best friend since they were young. They're basically brothers. I'm glad Macen was there for Grey when all this happened because I had no idea how to be there. I had wrongly encouraged that doomed relationship, and couldn't exactly go back on that. Well anyway, after a while is when I found out my best friend, Vee, liked him. Well then of COURSE Claire and I came up with "Operation Get Grey and Vee together," otherwise known as Operation GGAVT. So for a while, we tried to lump them together as often as possible, and of course they flirted, Vee intentionally and actually quite obviously, Grey more out of habit than anything else. But it was still something.

Now, I suppose I should tell you about Claire, and her part in this before I get ahead of myself with all this Grey and Vee nonsense. Alright, so Claire is one of the girls I became good friends with when I came to high school. We became friends in World History when she wrote "silliness" and "sesquipedalian" all over my notebook. I suppose you could say Claire was in a sort of "love triangle" with these two guys. Macen and Dean. Both were older and both were her good guy friends who she just happened to start having feelings for. Macen, as I said, was Grey's best friend. Dean was one of Macen's friends. She was caught between the two, and liked both of them. I suppose I should add that at one point, I also had feelings for Macen. They didn't last long, but they were there for a while. Oh, and Dean and Macen both liked Claire, but Macen also liked Vee. Obviously, this was a very tangled web. Anyway, when Vee found out *I* had feelings for Macen (I was the first to admit it and the first to get over those feelings, this was before we knew how Claire felt) she found every good reason why I shouldn't like him. Not that I could help my feelings, but reasons sometimes helped. Reason number 1) He was leaving in 5 months for the air force. Reason number 2) He was so much older than me. Reason number 3) He was a total player. Well, eventually I got over the feelings, Claire did not. When we found out she liked him AND Dean, we warned her against them, but of course that did nothing. For a while, she decided not to decide and to just like both of them. Eventually, she chose Dean, but Dean got mad at her and quit talking to her, so she switched to Macen. Yes, I'm aware that's not really how feelings work, but that's what happened. Anyway, after two days of this that seemed like they lasted weeks, Dean talked to her again and she once again had the choice to make. Finally, she stuck with Macen.

Part 2

Alright, so here's where the two strings intertwine, if you will. Basically what ended up happening is simply this: Macen who was best friends with Grey who was trying to get over Anne, liked Vee who liked Grey who liked Vee. But Macen also liked Claire who liked Macen and Dean. Okay so that wasn't as simple as I made it out to be. But these things never are. They get a bit over complicated and overwhelming at times. The point is, everything was screwed up, and there was a lot of unnecessary drama for a while.

I guess Macen and Grey were having one of their "talks" and Grey gave Macen the 'okay' to go after Vee and said that he'd find someone else to chase after. Then we went on a band trip and Grey kissed Vee. Wellllll obviously Macen was not going to be too happy about that since Grey had told him he would find someone else. Well Grey told Macen what had happened, and when we got back, Grey went home to find Macen waiting for him. No, nothing exciting happened like them fighting for her. Macen expressed his hurt, and Grey apologized for hurting him but not for what he did and that was that. That's how good of friends they were. So there's that, partially wrapped up. As for Macen? Well he ended up some what liking Claire, and that was that, for a while.

Part 3

Here's another part of this big tangled web: Ludo and Lilly. Theirs is shorter: they dated, they broke up, they dated, they broke up. She's absolutely in love with the guy, and he's a total jerk. But she's dealing with it as best she can. Some days are better than others and if he would stop being a complete jerk and consider her for even a minute, he'd realize he was out of his league and he should treat her right. And she'd realize she could do SO much better. But ah well. We are but high schoolers. We will learn. Hopefully.

And then there's Amber Lynn and her boyfriend as of a few days ago: Kent. I don't know him very well, but hey, he's cool. Amber Lynn's best friend, Mimi, sort of has a bit of drama. But I don't know enough about it to tell you too much. I won't go in to details on some of this, it would take far too long to get through the story. Anyway, back to the actual plot.

Part 4

Then I found out how much Vee had been hiding from me. I loved her to death, but she was hiding so much from me for so long. One day, I found out or more so figured out that she and Grey were starving themselves. Neither of them were at all over-weight. They were both entirely healthy sizes, but they were both convinced they needed to lose weight and NOT in a healthy fashion. I didn't say anything for a while, they had a deal where if one would eat the other would too and for a while, it was enough. Then it stopped being enough. They're head-over-heels for each other, and I thought they cared enough about the other to at least try and keep each other healthy, but in the end, they ended up supporting the whole anorexia thing. It was slow at first but it was getting worse. At the beginning of the semester, they would skip a meal here or there. Now, nearing the end of the semester? Grey was down to one meal a day, usually it was less, and Vee was going on binges, not eating during the school week and running 6 miles a day, then eating some on the weekends and feeling bad for it and running more. It was really starting to scare me. Especially because she was pulling away from us. She didn't realize it, and she wouldn't admit it even if she did, but she rarely hung out with us anymore. And when she did, Grey was always there. It was scary. We used to always say we would never be that girl who ditches her friends for a guy. But the truth is, she was turning into that girl.

Part 5

But then I was consumed with my own problems, for a while. John was one of the few people Grey actually cared about (Grey was one of those people who basically hates people aside from a few). First semester, I had a huge crush on him and that had gone down the drain when Miss Hailey jumped into the picture. Hailey was one of those people who guys just swarmed after. Literally, at one point she had over ten guys chasing her. Well of course, John followed the masses and fell for her. Did I mention Hailey was a complete tease? Well I'd known her since my 8th grade year and I was tired of her actions so we stopped talking for a while. Anyway, I guess I should get back to this semester. I became good friends with John near the beginning of this semester, I guess. We just started talking and I started caring for him as a friend and for a while as more than one. Well I got a little too involved, as was my nature, and ended up losing him and her-for a while. She texted me denouncing our friendship and I shot back all the nasty but true things I could think of, and of course he hated me for it. I knew that was likely the outcome but I did it anyway, so maybe I deserved his reaction. For a while, a couple weeks I was just angry or depressed all the time. I hated it, then she apologized and said things about being tired of hearing bad stuff about her and such. Finally, I apologized and we made up. Well that still left John. I wrote him a note and got him purple bubbles (a long time ago we'd had a conversation and he made me promise to give him the purple ones if I ever got colored bubbles). Because I was a total coward, I gave the note and bubbles to Claire to give to him. After he read the note, he hugged me and said "I accept" and then proceeded to blow purple bubbles on me. So I was of course thrilled to be forgiven.

Yes, it was all drama which I usually try to avoid. Yes, it was all stupid and pointless and it made me miserable. But it's in the past now, I can't exactly change it. I just let my feelings get the better of me, as every normal teenager would.

Part 6

Here's where we're starting back at: one week ago. Claire had a party for Macen because he was leaving in two days. It was a lot of fun, and everyone enjoyed it. Well, when he was gone, Claire and Grey moped around like it was the end of the world. I love them both, but I can't handle that. I simply pointed out that being depressed wasn't going to help anything and Grey snapped on me. I just sat and listened. They both got over it and we lived through finals. But Grey and Vee's eating habits didn't exactly get much better. They were eating some now, but I was still worried as hell. I didn't know how to deal with any of it anymore, nor did I want to. Finally, Claire and I broke down and told the one adult in our lives that we both trusted enough to hep us handle it: Angie. And after all that was told and we'd left, I told her one last thing, via text since Claire was with me. And that was this: Claire cuts. She cuts because of Macen. He made her promise not to but she thought that promise was cancelled out by the fact that he was the reason she was doing it in the first place. That's pretty much how the story goes.

~Sorry this is so scatter-brained! I was multi-tasking while writing it, and also wasn't sure how to write some of it. But here it is, for better or worse. If you know me, you can probably easily figure out who the characters are. But please don't tell. *Sigh* I hate. Ah well. I really hope things get better. Anyway, this is really rough and I don't know how good it is. My guess is not very, but I just needed to get it out there. Anyway! Thanks! :P


End file.
